The fighting continued. Men died as I wedged my way out from under them. Some of them slumped to the floor like laundry, like wet towels waiting to be cleaned. Others fought. I kept low to the floor as bullets and fléchettes passed above my head.
Freed from the pile, I rolled to a clearing, using bodies as palisades as I rose to an elbow and sprayed bullets into the ocean of men. I lay on the floor under a ghillie suit of limbs and corpses, and I fired ten-second bursts, hitting ankles and thighs. Men fell, and I aimed at their faces.
I could not look back to see if my men were trapped in the stairwell. I had to keep firing. When I ran out of bullets, I did not stop to reload. With dozens of dead men heaped up around me, there were plenty of guns on the floor, some wet with blood. I had to pull one out of the hand of a dead Marine. Such things did not bother me. I did not think about them.
I did not need to aim; the Unifieds were everywhere. I faced forward and pulled the trigger. Men died.
Against a force with fifty thousand men, a man with a gun is little more than a nuisance. Screaming and shooting and insane with rage, I might have killed fifty men. I pulled a grenade and lobbed it high, over the heads of the Unifieds. I heard it explode, but I did not see the results.
And then came the apocalypse. It was not a grenade or a mortar or a rocket. Those are small weapons designed to kill men. This was a bomb. Something big. Something meant to fell cities.
It created a blast so powerful that the floor bounced beneath me. It was like lying on the surface of a kettledrum while a drummer beats it with a sledgehammer. The entire pile of bodies bounced six inches into the air; and when I fell back down, I landed on a dead Marine.
The blast must have been a U.A. shell, or a bomb, or maybe a missile. The next blast was even more powerful. All the men and bodies around me flew two feet in the air; and when we landed, the world returned to silence.
The shooting stopped.
I sat up. Still clutching my M27, I searched the floor.
The walls were covered with blood, and there was blood splattered on the ceiling. The sound of the explosion rang in my ears. Blood and dust still coated my face.
From where I sat, I could stare out to the runway. I could see the flames and the wreckage of tanks and trucks. Thick tails of smoke twisted from the flaming vehicles.
The fighting had stopped.
It took an act of supreme violence to bring the fighting to an end, an act so brutal that it stunned men into helplessness. Rising to my feet, I did not know if the caravan of destroyed vehicles belonged to the Enlisted Man’s Empire or the Unified Authority. It could have been ours. It could have been theirs.
At the moment, it didn’t matter.
The shooting had stopped, but no one laid down his gun. We could not disarm the Unified Authority Marines without removing their armor. My Marines held their M27s tight. They were ready to keep fighting. If one man fired his weapon, everyone else would follow. The feeling in the air was tense. It was like standing waist-deep in a pool of gasoline and holding a match.
A wave of fighters flew by, escorting the bomber that had delivered the message. The Enlisted Man’s Empire now ruled the skies.
We never did invade Washington, D.C. The spaceport was as close as we came. When Freeman destroyed the missile defenses, the Unified Authority collapsed. Cutter had to drop a bomb on the forces massed around the spaceport to get their attention, but Tobias Andropov had already surrendered.
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EPILOGUE
Earthdate: December 10, A.D. 2520
Location: Earth, the Enlisted Man’s Empire
Galactic Position: Orion Arm
Astronomic Location: Milky Way
If the Bible is telling the truth, Moses tapped his rod against the shore of the Red Sea, and the waters split into a path. There’s no point denying that that was a miracle. Jesus turning the water into wine, Peter walking on water, three guys spending a night in a blazing furnace without getting burned ... all events that qualify for miracle status.
If Scott Mars had seen the battle at the spaceport, he would have called it a miracle. I’m not so sure.
The batteries that the Unified Authority Marines used in their armor ran out of power. The batteries gave out because the power spiked every time something touched the shields. In order to rush our position, the U.A. Marines crossed the runway during a blizzard. Snow landed on their armor and drained their shields.
It wasn’t like Moses splitting the Red Sea or Peter walking on water. If the Egyptians had used water-soluble glue to attach the heads to their spears, and Moses had led them through a rain forest, their spears would have fallen apart. Would that have been a miracle?
So Lieutenant Mars, the “born-again” clone, prayed for a miracle, and we survived a battle against Unified Authority Marines because they didn’t realize that their armor would react to the snow. Mars would probably say that God sent the snow.
I’ve always thought of miracles as singular events. God did not cause the Red Sea to split every year on the anniversary of Moses’s miraculous escape; but He sure as hell repeats the miracle of the snow every winter. We were just outside Washington, D.C., in early December. It snows there every year.
The weather changed the course of history, not God. At least, I don’t think it was God. I’ll explain that to Mars if I ever see him again. If he’s alive. If God was as kind to him as He was to us.
Maybe in his “ineffable way,” God sent the equivalent of a blizzard to help Holman and the Enlisted Man’s Fleet as they delivered refugees to Terraneau. Andropov sent the entire Earth Fleet to the Scutum-Crux Arm. The Unifieds’ fleet had faster ships with better armor. They had more fighter carriers than Holman. Could Holman have turned it around with his torpedo-wielding fighters? It would have taken a miracle.
When Tobias Andropov surrendered Washington, D.C., he must not have thought the defeat would last. He probably expected that the victorious Earth Fleet would return from Terraneau. His miracle never materialized.
The Earth Fleet never returned. Sometimes I stay awake at night, wondering what happened at Terraneau.
The first few days after we captured Earth, we had kept our fleet on high alert. Nothing happened. After a week, we realized that the Earth Fleet would not return and cut back our patrols.
And then we turned our thoughts to the Avatari. We knew that the murderous bastards planned to fill our atmosphere with tachyon particles and incinerate us; but without Sweetwater and Breeze, we did not know when. Andropov turned over the computer that once housed the scientists; but the men and the virtual space station in which they lived had vanished.
Without our barges, evacuating the planet was unfeasible. We inherited an impressive civilian fleet when we captured Earth, ships that were big and slow and comfortable. But those ships only traveled at ten million miles per hour, making it a twelve-hour flight to Mars and back, plus time for loading and refueling. With over fifty million people living on Earth, evacuating the planet did not seem possible.
In those first weeks after we captured Earth, I spent a lot of time thinking about Solomon, the planet on which so many people had died. We did not warn those people. We let them go about their lives completely unaware that death was around the corner.
Death comes quickly at nine thousand degrees. Those people might not have even had time to note the change in the temperature before they turned to ash. It was a comforting thought. Since we could not evacuate Earth, Cutter and I decided to keep its upcoming destruction a secret. It was Solomon all over again, only this time I was on the planet. Cutter remained safe on his ship.
Freeman and I spent days, then weeks, on edge. But, just like the Earth Fleet, the aliens never returned.
Miracles followed miracles in those days. Moses parted a sea, Peter walked on water, Earth survived to greet another year.
In the days after the first Avatari invasion, the Unified Authority sent its SEAL clones along wit
h the Japanese Fleet to hunt down the aliens. When the Avatari never materialized, I decided that the SEALs had probably accomplished their mission.
Miracles never struck me as particularly miraculous when men died to accomplish them. The aliens never returned. Neither did the Japanese Fleet. If God was revealing His power, He allowed a lot of good men to die in the process.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For any of you who are interested, I thought I might take a moment to talk about the construction of this book.
After writing the epilogue of The Clone Empire, I knew that The Clone Redemption would follow two story lines. If everything went right, the stories would wind themselves around each other like the strands of a double helix. My plan was to write both stories simultaneously; but as I began writing, I found it hard to switch from Harris to Yamashiro and Illych.
To make life easier, I decided to write two separate novels, then intertwine them. As I wrote the Harris side of the story, I created a calendar, then I referred to that calendar as I started writing about the Japanese Fleet and the SEALs.
I finished the first draft and polish of the Wayson Harris side of the book sometime in August and jumped into the other side of the book with absolutely no plan for where it would go. I knew that the Japanese had located the Avatari’s solar system, and that was it. So I started writing and let the story take me where it wanted to go.
I finished writing the Japanese side of the novel on October 7, had a short night’s sleep, and began weaving the two strands together on October 8. That is what I am doing right this moment.
I wrote this book with certain misgivings. As I started writing it, The Clone Redemption was meant to be the end of the Wayson Harris saga. The crafty Liberator clone has already lived three novels longer than I’d intended. I did not know in advance how the book would end, but I suspected that Harris would survive.
Now, though, I see intriguing possibilities. As Redemption ends, we are presented with a galaxy shared by three fledgling empires, all unsure if any neighbors exist. I’m not entirely certain about what happened at Terraneau, but I suspect there are survivors in the Scutum-Crux Arm.
I admit, I am intrigued. I like the idea of nations that have superior technology but lack the ability to renew it. Once their ships fall apart and their generators die, the Japanese on New Copenhagen will have a Bronze Age civilization. Ditto for anyone who landed on Terraneau. Back on Earth, Harris has factories, schools, and scientists; but what happens as his clones retire and die? Who will run the planet?
You can’t possibly think Tobias Andropov is going to honor the surrender!
If the stars line up, and my editors at Ace are willing, there may be more Harris stories yet. If my editors have not deleted these paragraphs from my notes, I would say those novels are a distinct possibility.
If they do arise, however, I doubt they will be titled The Clone [fill in the blank]. Harris and the SEALs would certainly play an integral role in any future endeavors, but there are no clone farms anymore; and I don’t imagine Harris has any interest in rebuilding them.
As always, I want to begin by thanking my editor, the lovely and talented Anne Sowards at Ace Books. There would not be any books without Anne’s help, and I wouldn’t know Anne if it weren’t for my agent, Richard Curtis. Thank you, both.
When I first came up with the idea of returning to the “Boyd Clones,” as they were originally known, I had meant to give them their own series. Then, as I wrote The Clone Empire , I decided to include them in the final pages. Had it not been for Anne, I could never have done that effectively.
Stephen King once wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.” Truer words may never have been written.
And speaking of editors, I want to thank the people who have helped me throughout the Harris adventure: my wife, my parents, and most especially my good friend Rachel Johnson. Also, I want to thank you, my readers. Harris would never have made it to a third book if it weren’t for those of you who took an interest. He and I will forever be grateful.
Steven L. Kent
October 7, 2010
From national bestselling author
WILLIAM C. DIETZ
AT
EMPIRE’S
EDGE
In a far-distant future, the Uman Empire reigns, conquering worlds across the stars and beyond, ruling with a benevolent hand . . . and an iron fist.
On one planet, the remnants of a violent, shape-shifting race called the Sagathies are kept captive by Xeno cops, who have been bioengineered to see through the aliens’ guises. Still, sometimes one manages to escape.
Jak Cato is a Xeno cop. He’s returning a fugitive Sagathi when things go horribly awry. Saved from being slaughtered with the rest of his men because he is drunk, Cato must now become the hero he was created to be, recapture the Sagathi, and exact revenge....
Praise for the novels of William C. Dietz
“A tough, moving novel of future warfare.”
—David Drake, author of the Hammer’s Slammers series
“When it comes to military science fiction, William Dietz can run with the best.”
—Steve Perry, author of the Matador series
penguin.com
From National Bestselling Author
MIKE SHEPHERD
The Kris Longknife Series
MUTINEER
DESERTER
DEFIANT
RESOLUTE
AUDACIOUS
INTREPID
UNDAUNTED
REDOUBTABLE
DARING
Praise for the Kris Longknife novels
“A whopping good read ... fast-paced, exciting, nicely detailed, with some innovative touches.”
—Elizabeth Moon, Nebula Award-winning author of
Kings of the North
penguin.com
THE ULTIMATE
WRITERS OF
SCIENCE FICTION
John Barnes
William C. Dietz
Simon R. Green
Joe Haldeman
Robert Heinlein
Frank Herbert
E.E. Knight
Jack McDevitt
Alastair Reynolds
Allen Steele
S. M. Stirling
Charles Stross
Harry Turtledove
John Varley
penguin.com/scififantasy
M3G0511
Ace Books by Steven L. Kent
THE CLONE REPUBLIC
ROGUE CLONE
THE CLONE ALLIANCE
THE CLONE ELITE
THE CLONE BETRAYAL
THE CLONE EMPIRE
THE CLONE REDEMPTION
The Clone Redemption Page 36